Mussio’s research interests lie in the intersection between health economics and experimental and behavioural economics. For this study, she used a model that combines revealed preference, contingent valuation, and beliefs.

In her study synopsis, Mussio notes that while joint estimation approaches increase the efficiency of estimation, they have not been widely incorporated into the valuation of the burden of a chronic illness. By jointly exploiting the combination of averting behaviours and contingent valuation, the study was able to address the effects of the endogeneity between parents’ beliefs about the severity of their child’s asthma symptoms, current household asthma management, and the decision for hypothetical asthma treatments. She says the results show that beliefs about asthma drive both household behaviours and valuation decisions.

She adds that in the case of a chronic illness it is essential to incorporate into the research subjective perceptions and beliefs, because prior experience will affect responses to valuation, and there is not a linear relationship between asthma, days of symptoms and expenditures (WTP included). When it comes to asthma, parents’ degree of worry about asthma between episodes and their beliefs on what exacerbates asthma affects WTP to reduce the child’s asthma symptoms.

The study calculates a mean WTP of $108.9 to reduce the child’s asthma symptoms by 50% every month. This value increases with the degree of the parent’s worry about asthma between episodes, and if asthma occurs jointly with other illnesses.